


love will not break

by preromantics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, HP: Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Epilogue compliant. Hermione moves in, ft. wedding planning, young love, and finding contentment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love will not break

Victoire is the one that tells him Hermione is coming, her head popping up in Harry's kitchen fireplace during breakfast, tight lines on her face that shouldn't be there, not with her wedding so soon.

"Honorary daughter-in-law," Harry greets between a jam-filled bite of toast, though not as jovial as he would usually. She smiles at that, at least, and laughs. 

"Not quite," she says. Harry watches the smile fade away from her face. "Hermione's popping by," she says, after a pause. "She stopped by this morning when she got back from Australia and I don't think she expected to find Ron in the kitchen tasting cakes with me and Rose."

"Ah," Harry says. He knows the tension between Hermione and Ron post-divorce is still too strong for them to interact without preparation. It's been a year, now, and Harry hasn't been pressing -- he knows the feeling well. He and Ginny get along quite well now, four years of separation between them. Some days he feels closer to her then ever with the expectations of intimate love and trust between them gone; he loves her still, when she flies as ref for the Harpies home field and her hair whips out behind her in the sun, when she falls asleep against Al on the couch during the holidays. It's just a different, familial sort of love.

("It makes me tense," Teddy had said, once, sitting for brunch with Harry and Victoire and discussing how they would set up the back garden for the wedding. "I like them both, I feel like I might end up on the wrong end of a spell or a crying person whenever I'm around Hermione and Ron these days."

"They remind me of you and Ginny," Victoire had said back, nodding at passing back Teddy's biscuit with jam spread onto it, "I think that makes it more bearable on everyone." 

Harry had mulled her words over for some time, trying to fit the pieces together, and saw that Hermione and Ron's divorce did remind him a bit of his own. It made it more bearable for him, too.)

"I think --" Victoire starts, her hair fanning out and mixing with the flames. Rose's head pops in next to her, bright-eyed and always a surprise to Harry with her youth, though she looks less bright today. Harry knows the divorce has been rougher on her than Hugo and he's glad that Victoire has taken her under her wing as the various branches of the Weasley-Potter households are swept up in the planning of Victoire and Teddy's long-time coming wedding.

"I think she might want to stay with you for a bit, maybe until the wedding." Rose says, finishing Victoire's sentence, "I know she's got that flat she's subletting and she won't want to impose, but maybe --" 

Harry inclines his piece of toast toward her. "I'll be sure to suggest it," he says. She smiles gratefully though her accompanying nod is tense. Beside her, Victoire nods as well. "I expect you'll both be 'round for dinner in two weeks on Sunday," Harry adds, "I think the rest of the kids are coming and Al's bringing Scorpius for the first time so I know Teddy'll want to be here."

"I think everyone will want to be there for that," Rose says. "Thank you, Harry."

"Girls," Harry nods. 

Their faces fade out of the fireplace just as the chimes from the hall start ringing and Harry sets down his breakfast as a lost cause, rising from the table to invite Hermione it. 

 

-

 

Hermione busies herself making tea as soon as she stops in, even before Harry can take her light coat and hang it for her. In the past year their interactions have been different -- he wouldn't want to call them uneasy, wouldn't want to make it seem like the tension between her and Ron has worked it's way into their friendship -- but there is definitely a marked difference that Harry can't put a finger on. 

She's outwardly normal, working around Harry's kitchen without asking where anything is. No one really ever asks where anything is in his kitchen, except for after that one time Luna re-arranged everything in the middle of the night in order to make it harder for Quag-somethings to infest his cabinets. 

Lots of people have stayed in Harry's house and eaten breakfast in the wide kitchen. He'd bought it as a sort of extravagance a year after the war, a big country manor with sloping gardens (thankfully magically tended) and several wings. Each of the children had a bedroom to grow up in and to come home to and the manor had three extra guest bedrooms that had frequent guests, friends and family in need of a little assistance. Harry hadn't planned on housing people here and there when he bought the place, and he and Ginny had been a little more stringent with guests when the children were young but now many came and went. 

Harry didn't mind; Luna stayed sometimes whenever the printing press for the Quibbler overheated and exploded her living room out into the garden, steadfastly refusing to take Harry's advice or money towards an actual building specifically designated for the printer. Neville stayed an entire summer when he and Hannah were having trouble; only Lily had been in school then, going into her seventh year, and she'd steadfastly refused to sit in the living room with them for two whole weeks even though Neville was always around for holidays and gatherings and kept calling him Professor the entire summer. Others had stopped by through-out the years, now Harry found it kind of comforting. He wasn't retired but he didn't do much work anymore; now he was more of a figurehead for the auror department, just as much as he was a figurehead to be toted out during Remembrance week to give a speech imploring upon the importance of peace. Or whatever Hermione usually edited in to make his speech less of a mess. 

"Your thinking is interrupting my thinking," Hermione says, setting down the kettle on a woodblock and spinning around to face Harry. Her face looks strange, like she might laugh. 

"Is it?" Harry says. "We can't have that." 

It's easy to open his arms for her when she tips up on her toes by the counter, indecisive. Years of training and field work have heightened Harry's skills in reading body language and emotions, though he'll never fully understand women. 

Hermione settles into his chest when he wraps his arms around her and she sighs into the fabric of his sleep shirt over his shoulder. "I suppose someone told you about this morning," she says. 

"Victoire floo-called, surprisingly," Harry says, rubbing his palms along the curve of her spine. "Rose, too."

She sighs, but it sounds more fond than weary. "It wasn't bad," she says, "just unexpected. Sometimes I think -- sometimes I picture coming home to the kitchen and just going back to normal. And after visiting my parents, well."

"No better?" Harry asks, leaning back so he can study her face. 

She shrugs slightly and he feels the motion more than he sees it. "They know bits and pieces like usual," she says. "Drove me to the airport to get home, I suppose I ought to call them in a few hours when they think my plane will have landed."

Harry presses his knuckles into her back, briefly. When he looks down at her, at the worry lines creased into her forehead, some of them unfading, he's struck with the sudden urge to kiss the lines away. "So," he says, stepping back, "tea?" 

"Lovely," she says. 

They walk around each other easily, gathering sugar and cups and silverware before sitting down opposite each other at the table. 

"What were you thinking about?" Hermione asks, delayed. 

Harry shrugs; it's a better time than any, he supposes. "All the people who have eaten in this kitchen," he says. He's not sure how to ask her to stay. He knows, just as the girls know, that she'd be better off here. If he's honest with himself, Harry knows he would be better off with her here, too. Lily's off traveling and Al's been busy with his apprenticeship under Charlie Weasley, James is living in london in what he proclaims is the best bachelor pad of any, and Teddy is living with Victoire counting down the days until their wedding. 

He watches Hermione take a bite of a jam-slathered triangle of toast from the pile Harry had made for himself earlier, taking a large bite that leaves sticky red perserve around the lines of her mouth. He thinks, strangely, of the year he'd spent post-divorce trying to date other women, of dates who would only take tiny bites of their food between tiny sips of wine between tiny amounts of small talk. 

"Lily made the jam last time she came by for a few days," Harry says, smiling at the way Hermione looks despite himself. "From those bushes in the garden that only bloom at night. Whatever fruit that is."

"Delicious fruit," Hermione says, surprising them both -- Harry had expected her to supply the answer and clearly Hermione had expected to maybe do the same. They both laugh as Hermione dabs at her face with one of the paper napkins set under the empty bread basket. 

"You should stay here a while," Harry offers, easy with the way Hermione is laughing across from him, still. "Help with the wedding plans and keep me from pacing around past all the empty bedrooms." 

Hermione stops laughing. 

"You're always welcome," Harry adds. "You know that." 

They are quite for a few moments until Hermione slumps down against her seat. "I'd like that," she says. "It might be nice to have someone to come home to after work for a while." 

Harry snatches the rest of her toast from her since it was his to begin with and eats it all in one go. "Exactly," he says, and when he thinks about it, about Hermione coming back to the manor for dinner, about sitting in the cozy family room and flipping through their various work reports together, it sounds more welcome than anything has in a while. 

 

-

 

Sometimes Hermione makes breakfast in the morning on days they both don't have to rush off to work. Sometimes Harry makes it, though it's infinitely better when Hermione does, even if her eggs are always just a little too runny and her toast too burnt. Sometimes they have dinner together alone, but most of the time someone joins them, one of the kids from either side, or Luna or any other number of people. 

Harry likes that about his life, now. It's busy more often than not but in a comfortable, un-pressured way. Even more so over the first almost two weeks Hermione stays over, the largest guest bedroom slowly turning into a room that looks like it's just fit for Hermione herself. Harry finds books all over the place, lining the shelves in Hermione's room and laid out on the kitchen table and the coffee table and in the bathroom on the shelves above the toilet. He still doesn't read too much, unless it's the paper (secretly he reads it mostly for the politics columns and the gossip columns, because they're always the most interesting -- he thinks James has noticed him folding the paper back straight away to the gossip section, but in a display much unlike his character, he hasn't mentioned it to anyone at all) or the odd lengthy report at work. The books feel homey, though, and Harry hadn't even realized the house had begun to feel not like home until it suddenly did again.

Two weeks into her stay, though, it's the tiniest bit less easy. 

"Relax," Hermione says, a few hours before everyone is expected for Sunday night family dinner, "if you don't relax, you'll burn the potatoes. And don't lie to me, Harry Potter, I've seen you explode an entire pot of stew out of anxiousness before."

Harry remembers that, exploding stew in Mrs. Weasley's kitchen because he wanted to properly ask Mr. Weasley for Ginny's hand in marriage and couldn't figure out how to do it without just blurting it out as everyone was starting to sit down. He'd been young and worried and everyone had ended up covered in dinner instead of eating it; Mr. Weasley had whole-heartedly given him permission and patted his shoulder, leaving bits of mashed up potato and carrot all over his shirt. 

"I'm fine," Harry says. "I'm worried for Al more than anything, with everyone else."

Hermione rolls her eyes at him over where she's chopping up carrots. "Everyone's known for ages about him and Scorpius, haven't they? I'm sure they'll behave." 

"He's never officially said anything, as obvious as it was," Harry says. "James is going to give him a hard time about it. Hugo probably will, too, speaking of."

Hermione smiles with the corner of her mouth tilted up and steps forward to deposit a pile of chopped carrots into his hands so he can put them into the steamer on the stove. It's all rather domestic and easy, the pace of how they live and work together. It reminds Harry of days he doesn't like to think about, camping out with the heaviness of everything weighing over them, trying to live and survive together, their mutual desperation sort of comforting. 

There are a few heavy things between them still, but much easier ones than this time around. 

"I think it's nice," Hermione says. "It's a good example about how the broken bridges from our time are being mended by our children."

Harry knocks his elbow into her. "I think it was just about Al trying to piss me off and failing and accidentally falling in love," he says. "Not that he'd ever admit that." 

"Young love," Hermione says, far from sounding wistful as she hands Harry more carrots. "Though I'm not sure falling in love is ever an accident."

As he dumps the rest of the carrots into the steamer, Harry watches her start in on the celery, a bit of her hair falling out from it's bun and across her face -- she looks younger than Harry feels, in that moment, and he suddenly has nothing to say at all. 

 

-

 

Dinner goes -- well. Hermione keeps shooting Harry 'I told you so' looks that he finds more amusing than anything. James bites his tongue through most of it, though he has several quips about the leather couches and the Slytherin common room that he can't quite keep PG. Most of the focus is on Teddy and Victoire -- Al hasn't seen them since before the engagement and his eyes keep straying back and forth from the pair of them to Scorpius at his side with more frequency than Harry is sure he likes.

For his part, Scorpius is polite and mostly quiet, save for a few jokes that Harry finds himself wanting to inhale his food the wrong way at. He looks like this father if Malfoy had more to smile about at Scorpius' age. 

Rose keeps Scorpius occupied talking about his internship at the Prophet and Hugo mostly stays silent and un-judgmental, throwing his mother glances through-out the meal as though he's trying to read her mind and make sure she's okay. 

Harry watches them all and feels a little proud, considers all of the kids like his own. They all seem so grown up; he knows Hermione is noticing the same because she knocks her knee against his under the table several times as they all talk about work and travel and the wedding, so much like old dinners around the table at the Burrow post-war when everyone was starting to settle back into their lives and into each other. 

Lily, always a little narrow-eyed and guarded around new people, though she's known Scorpius from school in the years above her, saves her judgement on their relationship until they're all busy clearing the table. "Why are you both being so polite?" she asks, suspicious and amused all in one, and everyone gathered around the table with their dishes in hand pauses. 

"Lil," Al says, "I'm always polite." 

"You're a prat," Lily says, easily, "less of one than our brother --" James, sounding much younger than he is, whines at her -- "but I've never even seen you keep your fork on your own plate during dinner." 

Al rolls his eyes. "He usually eats all my food when I'm not looking," Scorpius says with a shrug, "I was decidedly hoping it wasn't a family trait before I came over for dinner."

Lily waits a moment and then laughs, Harry finds himself joining her. "I like you," she says, tipping her knife in Scorpius' direction. He nods solemnly back at her and she laughs again. 

Al rolls his eyes. "Thank you for your ever-valuable character judging, Lil, I don't know what I'd do if you hated my bo -- Scorpius." 

"Judgement's still out on you, brother-dear," Lily says, "but your boyfriend can stay for dessert."

Al turns pink and Hermione tugs at Harry's elbow to lead him out of the kitchen with the rest, letting Al and Scorpius stay in the dining room alone for a few minutes. 

"Young love," Hermione repeats, pressed far too close against his side, and Harry feels himself mirror his son in the dinning room, color warming under his cheeks, and he blames it on the wine and stress. 

 

-

 

After the first month the house becomes busy nearly all the time. Victoire and Teddy have people over at a near constant pace, inspecting the garden plan and bringing over an abundance of food with caters for Harry and Hermione to sit down with Fleur and sometimes even Bill to sample, though their tastes are all so varied that Teddy almost always has to calm Victoire down from her indecision and pick out the food himself.

Mostly, Harry scales down what he's doing at work and Hermione seems less surrounded by paperwork and more by tissues. They spent a lot of afternoons in the garden together, laps draped with woolen blankets as the air dips into fall and gets cooler. Harry always liked the gardens most about the manor when he bought it and he's glad to see them put to good use for the wedding. When all the kids were young they'd spend hours racing and hiding among the trees and bushes, and when they were a bit older they would fly low over the hedges and throw balls through the narrow tree branches in fall after the leaves had fallen. 

"You look wistful," Hermione comments, a week before the wedding, both of them sitting out behind the house and watching the sun slant lines through the trees out over the landscaping. 

"This is a nice house," Harry says, needlessly, mostly to shake himself out of his thoughts. He turns to look at Hermione, wrapped up in a blanket up to her chin, her hands sticking out around the sides so she can hold up a book propped against her knees. There are no lines on her forehead, no tight draw to her mouth. Harry likes to think staying here has evened everything out, even though he knows she hasn't seen since the day she turned up and that could be part of it. 

"It is," Hermione says, looking amused. "Don't tell me you've just now noticed after all these years." 

Harry reaches out with his foot, the one not being used to balance himself tipped back a little against the table, and taps at what he figures is her calve underneath the wooly blanket. "No," he deadpans, "I've always hated it. Awful purchase."

She makes a face at him and he makes one back, and doesn't even feel ridiculous doing it. 

"I'd do it all over again, I think," he says, as long as he's burying himself in memories. He slides down in his chair a little, letting his glasses slide down his nose. "Kids in the garden, all of that." 

Hermione makes a soft, low noise. "I think I'd rather watch our various grandchildren and spoil them," she says. "I've definitely been looking forward to that." 

Harry squints out at the garden and pictures it, watching little kids bound around the garden with his own children complaining about tiredness and sore backs and learning just what it's like to be a parent. He thinks about watching with Hermione, growing old on the stone patio that leads out to the grass, buried under wool blankets feeling younger than they are for a long time. "I'd like that," he agrees, though he's agreeing to more than he means. 

"Grandchildren," Hermione muses, "Gods does that make us sound old." 

Harry shrugs. His bare foot is still pressed against Hermione's leg through her blanket and he's content enough to not move it. "We're still young," he says. "We've got years to go and grandchildren to spoil and see off to school."

When Hermione looks at him, her smile is odd. "We are rather young, aren't we," she says. "Sometimes I forget, with everything."

Young love, Harry thinks, and then almost laughs at himself, except then he'd have to explain, and the explanation in his head falls flat and doesn't seem very funny at all.

"I'm content," Harry says, because it seems to be the only thing -- the only truth -- to say. It feels nice to say, even. 

Hermione looks out at the garden for a long while. "I think I am too," she says, quietly, facing the grounds with a small smile. It grows when she turns and looks to Harry. "I am."

He smiles back at her, warm, overly warm maybe, and he feels like moving toward her and staying in his chair beside her all at once. 

Hermione turns back to her book, but before she starts reading she untucks her wand from behind her ear and flicks a little floating blue flame out on the table, not enough to warm them but enough to cast a glow as the sun turns golden and casts low shadow around them. 

In that moment, Harry is definitely content.

 

-

 

Two nights before the wedding they both stay up late going over the plans Teddy had asked Harry to okay for the garden, set to be put up the next day. 

"I thought we agreed no water features," Harry says, peering over the parchment and looking at the landscape of the house gardens from above. He's warm with a bottle of wine shared between them that lasted from lunch to dessert, and looking down at the plans makes him feel like going out and flying around the house a little. He hasn't flown for fun since last Christmas when he'd chased the boys with Ginny and Ron around the house, Hermione and Lily and Rose watching from the front lawn, all three buried in new books from under the tree that morning. 

Hermione flicks the parchment back up into a roll and slumps down against the couch onto Harry's side. "I'm so tired," she says, "I honestly could care less about water features."

"Next time one of my kids gets married, they aren't doing so at the house."

"I'll make sure to warn my two," Hermione says. She lets out a low, amused breath. "You should tell Albus Severus that," she says, "and watch his face turn red."

"Maybe I'll give James the honor," Harry says, smiling with her. The Malfoys are all coming to the wedding in two days -- everyone is, really. More people than Harry can count, and he has trouble counting all the Weasley's on their own. 

"Ron'll be coming," Harry says, instead of letting them both fall into a comfortable silence like he should. Hermione briefly tenses against his side and then relaxes. 

"Yes, he is," she says. "It'll be -- nice to see him."

Harry turns to look down at her, trying not to look surprised. He was thinking the same thing; it's been far too long since he's seen Ron. 

"It will," she says, her face warm in the firelight. "Isn't that sort of funny? I didn't realize I wanted to see him until just now." 

"Do you miss him?" Harry asks, pressing against his better judgement.

Hermione's brow furrows, but the softness of her face doesn't tighten. "I miss my other best friend," she says, sounding sure of her response. "I think it's time to start fixing that."

Harry knows how she feels, remembers the moment he realized he hadn't seen Ginny in months -- worried it meant maybe he'd made a mistake until he realized the feelings weren't there, and instead he'd gone over to the Burrow with Ron for a family dinner and ended up chasing Ginny around the yard on broomstick, out of shape at it compared to her daily practices as ref and assistant coach. 

He doesn't realize he's smiling down at Hermione against his side until he focuses back in and she's looking at him with a curious expression. "What?" she asks. 

"Nothing," Harry says, sounding stupid to his own ears. "I'm just glad you feel that way. Bed?"

After a moment, Hermione nods. "Bed," she agrees, "sounds wonderful."

Harry gets up first and offers her his hand, pulling her up off the couch with a little too much momentum so that she lands against his chest and the bones in his wrist crack. He groans at the sound and she makes a noise against his chest he can't make out. "I'm old," he complains, flexing his wrist and squeezing his fingers around hers instinctively. 

When Hermione draws her hand back, Harry flexes his fingers again around air and realizes he'd rather she hadn't let go. She's looking up at him, her face shadowed with how his body is angled in front of the fire, blocking out the light.

"Goodnight, Harry," she says, suddenly soft as she steps back from him. 

"Goodnight," Harry says, soft too, and he watches her walk away towards the kitchen and to the wing her room is in. The walk down to his bedroom feels drafty and long and his bed, for the first time since a year after Ginny moved out, seems far to big to be in on his own. 

 

-

 

The wedding is, unexpectedly, a mess that somehow magically comes together. There are too many people. It rains and soaks the seat chairs until they throw up more wards around Harry's house with some weather charms to block it out, people frantically drying seats and draped fabric as Victoire paces in her wedding dress in the kitchen and Teddy almost has a heart-attack on the lawn. 

Harry feels useless, alternating between greeting guests as they come in -- he has to let the wards down for them individually. It's been years since the last of the attacks by people holding on to old ways, but with a gathering like this and so many people learning Harry's address, he can't be too careful. Hermione alternates doing the same, trying to help but instead finding Rose in her place calming Victoire with Fleur.

"I feel so useless right now," Hermione says, catching up with Harry on the front stoop, looking out over the gate. "And partly like I should be planning for when Rose or Hugo get married -- I doubt I'll be as put together as Fleur."

Harry knocks their shoulders together. "If only we could all be like Fleur," he says, pitching his voice into a French sort of drone. Hermione bursts out laughing like he hasn't heard in months, one of her hands coming up to rest against his upper arm. She's wearing a pale pink dress with a matching coat, sensible for the wedding but fitted, low enough in the front that no one would believe she was already gearing up in her mind to be a grandmother for years to come. 

"You look -- nice, today," Harry says, a bit awkwardly. "Lovely, actually."

Hermione pats his shoulder. "I'm sure," she says, rolling her eyes, "you know there were girls all over in all of your bathrooms by 7am this morning?"

"I noticed when I got up," Harry says -- finding a usable bathroom had been quite an adventure. "But you do, despite that."

Harry watches at Hermione lets herself realize he means it and she tilts her head up toward him, her one hand still pressed against his arm, and opens her mouth to say something just as the gate pops open with a loud swing and they both turn too-fast to look. 

"Ron," Harry says, edging somewhere around welcoming but not quite getting there. 

He's looking at them both with a puzzled expression that turns into a wide grin at Harry and a wary but still pleased one towards Hermione.

"Ron," Hermione says when he gets up on the steps. He stops and pauses, both of them looking at each other. "Your hair has grown out quite a bit."

Ron reaches up and tugs at his hair, slightly damp from where he apparated before Harry's wards and must have gotten stuck in the rain. "It has," he agrees. "I'm no good at cutting it myself."

Hermione smiles, something like fondness on her face. "I could give it a go later, if you'd like," she offers. 

Harry almost laughs out loud -- Hermione may be wonderful at loads of things, except runny eggs and toast, but she is decidedly not good at cutting hair. 

Ron's eyes widen. "Thanks for the offer but --"

"You don't want to end up half bald?" Hermione supplies. 

Harry hugs them both, his hand lingering on the low curve of Hermione's back when it ends up there in the process. 

The three of them walk into the house together for the first time in a long time. Ginny is on the couch in the foyer with Luna and Neville when they come inside and as Ginny sees them she nods and smiles at Harry, understanding on behalf of Ron and Hermione. He nods back, half tempted to challenge her to a race around back after the ceremony because he's been thinking about flying, but Hermione reaches back for him so he'll catch up and he reaches for her hand, easy. 

 

-

 

Besides the weather (rumbles of thunder drown out a few of the ceremony vows), and the nerves (Harry can see Teddy sweating at his collar from his place in the first row, the hair at the back of his neck changing colors), and a few moments of pre-ceremony awkwardness (Harry's "I'm proud of you, son, and I know your parents would be, too," to Teddy had gone over with silence between them and ended in a rather bone-crushing hug -- and Harry's brief conversation with Malfoy about Albus Severus and Scorpius had ended with what had to be one of the most awkward and stilted dinner invitations ever), the vows and I do's are exchanged without a hitch. 

The reception is held right after, under tents and the trees in the garden, their branches lit up with fairy lights and floating candles. 

Harry hangs back for a while, watching everyone out on his lawn, his old friends dancing, his children and his friend's children dancing, and instead of feeling old he's back to feeling content and like he has a hundred years ahead of him to enjoy watching people in his garden. 

At some point, he realizes, after his divorce and after James and Al and Lily left, after his workload slowed down to more direction than anything, Harry's life became a lot about his house and his garden and finding a place within it all. 

He watches Hermione dance with Neville out on the floor, several people cheering them on from the sidelines because Neville still loves to show off his dancing skills, even after all these years. He dips Hermione with a hand on her back and Harry feels briefly jealous and then silly for feeling that way and then all too aware of himself at once. 

"Hey," Ron says, stepping around to Harry's side. "This seems familiar."

Harry turns away from watching Hermione, the soft fairy light glow catching in the loose strands of her hair, he face lit up and -- "What?" he asks. 

Ron grins, rather indulgent. "The two of us, sitting back and watching everyone dance. Watching 'Moine dance, one of us wishing we were in someone elses place."

Harry feels caught, though Ron doesn't sound anything other than reminiscent and amused. "I'm sure Hermione wouldn't say no to a dance," Harry says evenly, a little unsure. 

Ron knocks into his side. "I don't mind," he says, "If you're wondering." 

Harry looks at him sidelong. "When did you get so perceptive?" he asks, but he feels sort of light. 

Ron shrugs. "Firewhisky," he says. "Clears my head."

Harry knocks back into him. "Yeah?" 

"If it had to be anybody," Ron says, "well -- you know."

"Thanks," Harry says, full of honest appreciation. 

Grinning, Ron knocks against Harry one more time, pushing him forward. "Go dance," he says. "I saw you two on the front steps." 

Harry takes Ron's advice, though he knows they'll probably have to address everything in their own way at some point in the near future. Their own way involving a bar and copious amounts of alcohol before the feelings come out, but it works for them. 

It seems to take entirely too long to cross from the top of the garden down to where everyone is dancing. Hermione is just finishing, fanning her face and smiling at Hannah when she cuts in to grab her husband for the next number, Neville looking delighted to start in on another dance. Harry watches them for a second before turning to intercept Hermione as she walks past. 

"Hermione," he says, catching her with his fingers around her wrist, "dance with me?"

She looks startled and pleased and other things all at once. Her skin feels hot under the pads of his fingers. "I thought you'd never ask," she says, and then shakes her head, turning in towards his chest. "That didn't quite come out as well as I thought."

Harry grins at her -- wants to never stop doing so. "I've been waiting a while to ask," he says, "though I think I only just realized, if that helps."

When he settles his hand on the curve of her waist her nose scrunches up and Harry dips down all at once to press his own nose against her's, her responding laugh a flutter of air onto his skin. 

They aren't the best dancers, especially with Neville swinging by them, but Harry can hardly be bothered to pay attention. He can't stop looking at Hermione's face in the low light, at the way she's looking right back at him, something secret and warm in her eyes that Harry feels in his chest. 

He doesn't try and dip her, not when he knows the chance he has of dropping her is quite a bit higher than the chance he has of not, so instead he leans in a kisses her as they come out of a turn. It feels far too easy, as her lips part around a small noise and the curve of a smile and her hands tighten in the back of his jacket. 

"Well," Hermione says, breathless when they part, Harry still holding her close. 

"Well," Harry echoes. He feels pretty pleased with himself and it must show because she swats at his arm even though there is color high on her cheeks. 

Harry glances around them -- most people aren't paying attention but he spots James rolling his eyes and Rose grinning brightly and Al in the corner of the tent decidedly not paying attention to anything but his boyfriend's mouth. 

Hermione rests her head on his shoulder as the tempo changes and he can feel her nod. A little spin to the right lets him know she was exchanging a nod with Ron and he feels, not for the first time in the past few weeks, completely content with everything. 

"Young love," he murmurs into her hair, looking at everyone around them and then at Hermione in his arms and she squeezes her arms tighter around him. 

"Something like that," she says. 

 

-

 

Al floo-calls a few mornings later while Harry is sitting in the kitchen, reading the gossip column in the Prophet while Hermione makes some runny eggs. 

"Dad," Al says, sounding distressed, what Harry can see of his hair looking decidedly like bed head. 

"Dinner tonight," Harry says before he can say anything, "I haven't forgotten."

"Yeah, well -- don't forget to look nice, okay," Al says. 

Harry isn't sure if he should be offended or amused. 

"Your father always looks nice," Hermione says, bending down near the fire. She looks back at Harry and sees his face and shakes her head before turning back to Al. "Alright," she amends, "that was a lie. I'll make sure he looks presentable."

"Thank you," Al says, sounding less stressed. Harry shakes his head toward the fire as Al disappears. 

"I have such ungrateful children," Harry says, reaching out to pull Hermione toward him as she passes by. She leans her hip against the table and smiles indulgently down at him. 

Hermione hums -- this thing between them is still new, still frighteningly easy. Yesterday Rose asked if Hermione wanted to move the rest of her stuff from her flat before Hugo went away on his research grant. Harry had said yes before Hermione even opened her mouth to say anything at all. 

"Are you nervous?" Hermione asks. 

Surprisingly, Harry is fine with it. Dinner with the Malfoys and his son and Hermione sounds sort of like the beginning of an amusing story to use at awful ministry dinner parties. 

"As long as they don't get married for at least a year," Harry says, "I'm fine." 

"I think the garden is safe from weddings for the time being," Hermione says, ducking down for a brief kiss. 

Harry watches her turn back to the stove and thinks about weddings and the garden and how soft Hermione looks in her nightgown, how he'd woken up next to her and it felt right. "Safe," he repeats. They've got a few children to have weddings between them and then -- well, there is also them, together. "Maybe," Harry says, more to himself than Hermione as he looks out past her and through the kitchen windows out to the trees and lawn that he can see. 

It had looked nice the other night. Harry wouldn't mind dancing under tents and fairy lights again sometime soon if it involved Hermione. 

Hermione sits down in the chair next to him. "I'm sick of eggs," she says, "and those were burnt."

Harry folds over the Prophet and grabs her hand instead. "Let's go out for brunch," he says, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, and they do.

**Author's Note:**

> Original LJ posting: 7/24/11.


End file.
